Book News and New Book Reviews

Friday, June 5, 2015

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s former home in Great Neck, the location that inspired his classic novel “The Great Gatsby,” is for sale. The seller is looking to fetch $3.9 for the Long Island home.

According to the real estate listing, Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda rented the home for two years in the early 1920s. Check it out: "Zelda called it “our nifty little Babbit-home at Great Neck,” and it became their base for parties and visits to even more luxurious homes in the vicinity, which eventually became the class-conscious West Egg and East Egg of “Gatsby.”"

Nearly half of last year's highest grossing filmsworldwide were based on comic properties; "Avengers: Age of Ultron" alone made nearly $1 billion in its first weeks of release. And the 2014 New York Comic Convention drew more than 150,000 attendees to the Javitz Center over a four day period for an annual celebration of all things comics.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

We've waited a long time for this summer, and with its approach comes our annual selection of the season's books that we're most looking forward to reading and anxious to share. Summer's a time to catch up with old friends, like Stephen King, whose Finders Keepers, a new crime fiction novel, follows last summer'sMr. Mercedes. Haper Lee's second book, Go Set a Watchman, arrives after 55 years with all the usual suspects from her eternal blockbuster; and Judy Blume tackles the early 50s with In the Unlikely Event, her first adult novel since 1998. Things that go bump in the night are always fitting summer fare and The Decagon House Murders, a Japanese mystery by Yukito Ayatsuji, will have you locking your screen doors. And how about learning something this summer? Dig into the art world with Grayson Perry's Playing to the Gallery, or figure out today's dating world with comedian Aziz Ansari. But for pure sensation, pick upNew Yorker writer William Finnegan's memories of the beach, Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life. Just try and keep the sand out of your book …and out of your sandwich. -Louisa Ermelino, Reviews Director (read the rest)

Sunday, May 24, 2015

The future of libraries is filled with potential, according to Palfrey, the former director of the Harvard Law School Library and founding chair of the Digital Public Library of America. His new book carves out a strong and exciting vision for libraries in the 21st century, one that maintains the core activities of librarianship (“ensuring access to and preservation of information”), by combining the virtues of the library as a public space situated in a community with the vast networking capabilities afforded by the digital era. Palfrey, a passionate advocate for libraries, underlines their importance—but make no mistake, his book is not so much an ode to libraries as a stark wake-up call. The question that looms throughout is whether libraries will even continue to exist. To that end, he paints a harsh reality of the crisis currently facing libraries as they “awkwardly” straddle the analog and digital spheres: “on the one hand, the public sentiment that the digital era has made libraries less relevant, and on the other, the growing number of expectations we have for libraries, stemming in no small part from the very digitalization that the public assumes is making them obsolete.”(read the rest)

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

The last time I saw my best childhood friend, we got in a fight over a book. We were standing around outside the community center, taking a break from the high school reunion I’d flown back to Missouri to attend. I’d long known that my friend was an extremist. He was the first of us to drink, to smoke weed, snort crank; he wanted everything, in heaping helpings. While most of us dabbled, he dove, hard head first. Being his wingman through high school and for a few years after was dangerous and fun. By the time of this reunion, though, he’d beat all of his addictions with God—for starters. Standing in the cold so he could smoke (his only remaining vice), he wanted to convert me, and his secret weapon was a book. But it wasn’t the Bible.

Saturday, May 16, 2015

The coalition of booksellers, authors, readers and librarians that make up the Campaign for Reader Privacy has pressed the House Judiciary Committee to pass the bi-partisan USA Freedom Act of 2015. In a statement about the group's support, the coalition said the bill will "restore some privacy safeguards to the government’s surveillance activities." In addition to curtailing some surveillance efforts by the government, the CRP added, the legislation would also, and most importantly, end the collection of data under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. The group has long been seeking to, it explained, "change the standard under which the government can seize sensitive records under Section 215 from one of 'relevance' to an ongoing terrorism investigation to an individualized standard of suspicion."

I always refer to audio publishers as digital pioneers. Long before the rise of the ebook we sat in stuffy conference rooms and discussed the importance of good metadata and the best methods for file transfers or website downloads or digital sampling. With the turning of the 20th century and the introduction of this funky little device called the iPod the audiobook world was revolutionized. Suddenly, audiobooks stopped taking up physical space. People could carry 20 audiobooks wherever they went. And they did.(Read the Rest)

Friday, May 8, 2015

By Maryann Yinon May. 1, 2015 - 3:00 PMFirst Book has created an infographic to show that “Parents Value Printed Books.” According to the company’s blog post, “a recent study by the Pew Research Center shows that 9 out of 10 parents of children under 18 say it’s important to them that their children read printed books.” We’ve embedded the entire graphic below for you to explore further. To learn more about kids and reading, check out Scholastic’s “What Do Kids Want in Books?” piece and BookUp’s “Reading Among Teenagers in Decline” piece.

Monday, May 4, 2015

Publishers are running out of space. Not in their headquarters, some of which are larger and more imposing than ever, but in retail. The number of booksellers has been dwindling since the demise of Borders, and the largest book retailer today is Amazon, which has no physical space at all. So the question is, where can publishers showcase new books? If only there were a space dedicated primarily to reading that hundreds of millions of Americans visit annually. If only there existed a trusted space, free of the revenue pressure that necessitates displaying lightly pornographic books of debatable quality. If only there were a space largely inhabited by active readers, where publishers could showcase new authors or shine new light on talented mid-listers.(Read the Rest)